Tesco
Since 2013 I have played a central role at Tesco, firstly contracting as acting Head of Design for Tesco.com before joining full time in 2015 as Creative Lead for their UK Marketing Communications team.
In that time I have built and led within Tesco’s in-house Creative Studio that now delivers a vast range of multichannel work supporting our numerous seasonal and always-on campaigns.
The examples below showcase just a few highlights from my time at the heart of the UK’s largest retailer.
Clubcard Reward Partners
In 2023 the Tesco Creative Studio team was tasked with a challenging brief: to re-establish Clubcard Reward Partners as the most generous scheme of it's kind on offer from UK retailers, despite the value of Clubcard points reducing from 3x to 2x in exchange for rewards. Despite that the campaign, which landed across numerous channels from DOOH to Social Media, performed to exceed expectations, improving customer sentiment and driving increased engagement with the scheme.
Whoosh
Tesco launched an innovative proposition in 2023 to revolutionise online shopping – Whoosh, offering customers online grocery deliveries from as little as 20 minutes. The Creative Studio team were briefed to conceptualise both the launch campaign in February that year followed by a heavyweight outdoor campaign that Summer. Both achieved significant success performing better than predicted resulting in sales over £1m from the first burst alone.
Tesco Bank
Since 2023 Tesco’s Creative Studio’s remit has also included support for Tesco Bank and it’s products. This included a much-loved campaign for Pet Insurance which is discounted for Clubcard holders. An enjoyable brief to have worked on yielding excellent results. Similarly we had fun creating the character of Maverick the seagull for a Tesco Bank Travel Money and a pre-historic treatment for Car Insurance ...much-loved by our customers.
Christmas
Christmas is by some margin the most important seasonal campaign for Tesco and our preparations require an all-year -round effort. My responsibility for Christmas, and all our seasonal campaigns, is twofold:
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To work with brand teams and agencies to develop guidelines and assets that are fit-for-purpose to bring the campaign to life across throughout our communications, and
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To then ensure that my team executes our comms briefs (across numerous channels, both on and offline) consistently and correctly in line with the standards set out in the guidelines
Food Love Stories
One of Tesco’s most celebrated campaigns in recent years has been Food Love Stories which launched in early 2017 and has remained always-on ever since. This award-winning campaign has been focused on reconnecting with our customers’ personal relationship with food and celebrating quality. My responsibility in this campaign was to work closely with our above-the-line agency BBH to ensure assets were created fit for purpose and devise guidelines to ensure that the campaign landed consistently and effectively across our digital channels. Latterly, my team has been tasked with finding innovative new ways to re-energise the campaign in-store, experimenting with new media such as floor projections and even augmented reality.
Centenary
In 2019, Tesco marked it’s centenary with a campaign that pulsed throughout the year, celebrating 100 years of great value. Working with our above-the-line agency BBH, the campaign was driven by promotional offers with ‘Prices that take you back’ visualised by introducing British cultural characters from the last century such as Mr Blobby, Morph and Rollergirl. My challenge was to ensure that the campaign was realised consistently and impactfully across our owned channels such as email, social and outdoor digital media.
Covid-19 response
Without doubt the work I am most proud of during my time at Tesco has been in our response to the Covid-19 outbreak. Faced with urgent and unprecedented demand, in the first three months of the pandemic our Creative Studio team delivered 50 online updates, 14 customer service emails and over 180 elements of Point of Sale, many of which were utilised by the pop-up Tesco stores at the emergency NHS Nightingale Hospitals commissioned to treat the sick. As a result, it felt as though the work we produced truly made a difference and this was reflected in Tesco’s brand perception, which has never been better.
Jamie Oliver partnership
Over the past three years, Tesco have entered a partnership with Jamie Oliver who takes the helm in our Health communications, encouraging customers to eat more veg and introduce ‘healthy little swaps’. I was tasked with devising a brand toolkit to ensure that our Jamie Oliver comms were delivered consistently across our channels, out of home,
in-store and online.
Pride
Tesco has had a long association with the annual Pride parades across the UK, as an official sponsor in supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Each year, we explore innovative and helpful ways to celebrate the event and my creative team play a central part in producing our multichannel comms to support across press, in-store and social media.
Colleague Networks
The Colleague Networks within Tesco aims to welcome every member of our workforce, regardless of race, creed, age, ability, gender or sexual orientation. We have launched dedicated networks for communities throughout the business, including:
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Armed Forces
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BAME
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Disability
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LGBTQ+
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Women
Our in-house creative team supports these communities with the production of press ads, pamphlets and company wide publications.
Sustainability
As the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco recognises we have a responsibility to lead by example in our response to the environmental challenges that face the country. One key endeavour has been to cut-down on single-use plastics both in our packaging and carrier bags. In 2020, we made a commitment to:
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Remove unnecessary packaging
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Reduce waste
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Recycle materials
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Reuse plastics where possible
Our team were tasked with bringing the campaign to life across numerous customer-facing touchpoints, both in-store and online.
Neighbourhood Food Collection
The Neighbourhood Food Collection is a central part of Tesco’s ongoing effort to encourage customers to donate long-life food to charity. Since our first collection in 2012, we have collected over 84 million meals. This includes customer donations as well as the 20% top-up from Tesco and food donated to our permanent food collection points in-store. Our in-house creative team were responsible for designing and publishing the first online hub for the 2013 Neighbourhood Food Collection and subsequent social media and in-store marketing materials.
Direct mail campaigns
One of the fastest-growing areas of activity that the Tesco Creative Services team supports is Direct Mail. Since bringing all Direct Mail creative resource in-house in 2018, we have produced literally hundreds of mailers both for Tesco ourselves and for third party brands, briefed into us from Dunnhumby who are responsible for all commercial branded comms within Tesco’s owned estate. With the team continuously innovating and making improvements, our Direct Mail production is a story of continued success with our mailers consistently driving ROI, uplift in sales and redemption rates.
Tesco Finest Valentine's Day
As Tesco’s premium range, our Finest brand celebrates shared moments worth savouring. As such, the Finest Meal for Two is always the centrepiece of Tesco’s Valentine’s Day campaigns and is advertised across all our key customer touchpoints. As with all seasonal events at Tesco my role is to develop assets and channel guidelines to ensure that the creative execution of our campaigns is consistent wherever our customers come into contact it.
F&F
The mission of F&F at Tesco is to help people look good and feel great, offering aspirational fashion with a down-to-earth twist. As one of our most prominent sub brands, the challenge with F&F is to carve out a strong identity in of itself which yet exists in harmony with Tesco’s wider masterbrand. Tesco’s Creative Studio is tasked with landing F&F’s marketing comms across all in-store and digital channels and recent campaigns have included the rebrand on the Denim category and the launch in 2024 of the F&F Home general merchandise range.
Central Europe
Since 2024 Tesco’s Creative Studio has taken on a consultative role in the production of assets required for multichannel marketing comms across our Central European markets including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In doing so, we have driven improved brand consistency and efficiency, working smarter to deliver a joined-up creative approach across all our business units.
Web Ops
My first position when I arrived at Tesco in 2013 was to head up the in-house Web Ops team, comprised of designers, front end web developers and trade managers responsible for the marketing content published to Tesco.com, Grocery Home Shopping and the Tesco Clubcard website. This included flagship campaigns such as Love Every Mouthful (devised by agency Wieden+ Kennedy), seasonal events and social activation such as Race For Life in partnership with Cancer Research UK where we created bespoke hubs curating key content.
Digital Design Language (DDL)
One of the most important projects I have been involved in at Tesco is the creation of our Digital Design Language (the DDL). By 2015, Tesco had amassed in excess of 200 websites and 60 apps, each developed by independent teams working in silo, resulting in enormous disparity in visual execution. Working closely with UX and UI specialists around the business, over the course of 18 months, we devised a robust and fully functional design framework, setting standards for common components such as type, buttons, iconography and colour. This was published to an online toolkit for all our digital properties to follow, ensuring brand consistency across Tesco’s websites, emails, offisite media and apps.